One year into my Toastmasters Journey , I discovered that my preferred leadership styles were democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. The democratic leadership style encourages active participation among team members and the leader uses collaboration and communication to receive input from team members.  The pacesetting leadership style is productivity focused and the leader expects the team members to embrace new projects and complete them quickly. The coaching leadership style involves the leader motivating and challenging individual team members to reach their full potential. These leadership styles worked for me because in 2019, I led the Missions Ministry at my church, and I also mentored employees new to the agency. Fast forward five years later, I no longer lead a group of people or formally mentor young professionals. Now, I have the responsibility of raising a child who will make a positive impact on society. Also, I must ensure that I set a good example for my daughter and align my actions with my words. In addition, I’m preparing for life after my career ends by receiving coaching on entrepreneurship and sales. Parenting and pivoting to another occupation often require different leadership styles. When I took the leadership style questionnaire this year, I learned that now my preferred leadership styles are innovative, coaching, and democratic.

The innovative leadership style is characterized as being the most effective at problem solving.  Leaders who use this style pursue excellence, share a vision of the future, and support innovative ideas. Being a parent requires that I set a good example for my daughter by pursuing excellence and encouraging her to think outside of the box to come up with creative ideas to solve problems. Coaching and democratic styles have remained my go-to leadership styles. The coaching leadership style also involves communicating one-on-one with an individual to promote a high level of personal gratification. In the future, I want to encourage and challenge clients to overcome obstacles and pursue their dreams by pointing out what they do well and the skills they can develop to obtain their desired results. Also, I want to motivate my daughter to hone her God given gifts and talents by enrolling her in classes that will help her develop these attributes and encourage her to keep going if she feels that the classes are too difficult.

In the democratic leadership style, the leader motivates by providing opportunity for participation. In addition, the leader is comfortable in letting others lead certain projects. In the future, I can occasionally use this style with my daughter by having her decide what chores she would like to do to maintain our home.  Although I don’t currently lead a team, I know that delegation will allow team members to work in their specialties and allow the team leader to focus on managing the team and promoting the team’s vision. The leadership styles that I need to incorporate in my leadership style arsenal are authoritative and bureaucratic.

The authoritative leadership style allows the leader to provide long-term direction and focus on end-goals. The leader provides clear direction and sets standards while motivating and inspiring enthusiasm for the mission. As a parent, I know that I need to give my daughter clear instructions and set standards for her to follow. For example, my daughter will begin potty training soon and I have purchased a children’s book on potty training and watched children programming with her that covers the steps for using the potty.

When decisions need to be made in a short time period, the bureaucratic leadership style is useful. Furthermore, this leadership style motivates by discipline and demands immediate compliance. I have used this leadership style when I needed to quickly enroll my daughter in daycare due to her sitter obtaining a full-time job. I will need to incorporate the bureaucratic leadership style more to instill discipline in my daughter. Since she is young and doesn’t understand yet why she shouldn’t everything in her mouth or go near the oven, I have to use bureaucratic leadership and take objects away from her and guide her away from the oven.

Innovative, coaching, and democratic leadership styles are currently my preferred styles and reflect this season of my life. As my life evolves, I know through experience that I have the flexibility to use the leadership styles I have adapted in the past and use new leadership styles depending on the groups that I will lead in the future.